1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a document management system, document management apparatus, document management method, and program for managing data of documents or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, the introduction of stricter regulations has meant that industry is being required to keep an ever wider variety of data for regulatory storage periods.
It is therefore necessary to be able to dispose of the data and printed material once the storage period has passed and to prove that the data has been disposed of.
In the prior art, a system has been disclosed which proceeds alternately processing for the disposal procedure capable of carrying out through disposing goods expiring its previously set disposing deadline or authorized to dispose before expiring the deadline (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2003-034436).
However, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-034436, when all document data and data associated to the document data are disposed of in the document data disposal processing after the storage period has passed, the following problem occurs.
In short, links between printed matter resulting from print output of the document data and the document data are lost when the document data and data associated to the document data are disposed of. Therefore, when subsequently attempting to dispose of all the printed matter resulting from print output of the document data, disposal confirmation/registration operations are impossible and complete disposal cannot be proved.